Playing the Field

by C. J. Pinard

  “Ma’am, where am I?” I asked.

  “You’re at the hospital on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, sir.”

  “Oh. Can I make a phone call?” I slurred.

  She smiled. “Your family has already been notified, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  I frowned. “My wife?”

  She lifted a shoulder and let it fall as she jotted furiously on a clipboard. “Not sure, whoever was listed as your next of kin, I suppose.”

  I was in a drug haze, and getting hazier, but I knew I had changed my emergency contact to Miranda before I’d left. She must be hysterical with worry.

  “Can I call her? She is probably…”

  I don’t remember anything after that. I slipped into the blackness again.

  ***

  I spent a week in a hospital bed, drugged up and mostly out of it. Once I felt I was starting to get better, I asked the nurses to cut me off the IV pain meds, not wanting all those drugs in my body. I did use aspirin and ibuprofen to manage the pain, but it didn’t manage it very well. I just gritted my teeth and hoped the worst was behind me.

  Thankfully, someone had brought me my personal effects, and I used my cell phone – after I’d managed to charge it back up – to call my wife. It probably cost a zillion dollars for that call, but I didn’t care.

  “Jace!” Miranda choked as she answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, baby.”

  She sniffled, and as she spoke, her voice broke again. “Oh, my God. Someone from the Marines called and said you got shot. You got fucking shot, Jace! I haven’t eaten, I haven’t slept… I’ve been sick. Sick! Do you hear me? Please tell me you are all right!? They wouldn’t tell me anything! Just that you were shot. Not where, not how serious, nothing! Only that you were alive! Who does that to a person?! God, Jace, are you all right?”

  Yep, totally hysterical.

  “Miranda, slow down. Just take a deep breath and listen to me, okay?”

  I heard her inhale. “Okay, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart?

  I bit back a smile. “I was shot. In the chest, and in the leg. Both were through and through, and I’ll make a full recovery.”

  “Oh, my God! You were shot in the chest!?” she squealed. “By who?”

  I relayed to her what had been told to me by Lt. Col. Owens when he’d visited me yesterday. “Friendly fire, actually. We were loading a prisoner into a truck and were ambushed, the MPs were trying to keep them from getting to us and began shooting and stray bullets hit me and another guy.”

  “Oh, dear God,” she breathed.

  “And yes, I was shot in the chest, but the doctors didn’t even have to operate. They did say, though, that the bullet missed my heart and lungs by mere inches.” It sounded quite dramatic, but I was in a dramatic kind of mood, and Miranda’s hysterics didn’t help any.

  She gasped. “Inches? Inches, Jace? Oh, my God. That’s scary! I have been praying. I’ve had my whole family praying… Cara, her mom, her church, everyone is praying. I asked all my social media friends to pray. We’ve all been sick with worry!”

  “Seriously, Miranda? Did you tell my parents?”

  “Hell yes I told your parents! Are you kidding me? I could barely hold it together. I needed some support.”

  “Shhh. Just calm down and take another deep breath. I don’t care that you told my family. I just hope they’re not worried.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Well, they are, Jace. And since I know it costs a million dollars a minute for you to use that cell phone, I plan on calling them for you, then I will put out a message on Facebook that you’re okay. Everyone is so worried!”

  Well, that made me feel good, I guess. I felt guilty that everyone was worried, but a small part of me was happy that so many people cared.

  “So when are you coming home? Please tell me I won’t have to wait until July!”

  I nodded, then took another sip of water. “I’m getting out of the hospital today, but I still can’t walk very well, and my chest is killing me. They’re sending me home as soon as I can comfortably ride in an aircraft for an extended period of time.”

  “Oh, thank God. I need you home, Jace.” The relief in her voice was almost palpable.

  Something suddenly dawned on me. “Did you say you weren’t eating or sleeping?”

  I could tell she had calmed considerably, and she exhaled. “Not really. I mean, it’s been a nightmare, this past week. Thankfully, the FBI’s let me work from home three days a week and not have to commute, but it’s not like I’ve gotten much work done. My brain has been scrambled, my heart has been a mess.”

  My tone was stern. “Miranda, you need to eat. You have to think about the baby. The stress isn’t good for it, either.”

  “Whose fault is that!?” she squealed out.

  I laughed. “Okay, calm down, my queen.”

  And I think she did at the use of my term of endearment for her. “Okay. I love you. Please come home soon, okay?”

  “I will, I promise.”

  And I kept my promise to her. After only four months in Afghanistan, on 20 April, I was on a plane home.

  ***

  The plane ride was long, and seemed to go on forever. It wasn’t like the plane ride there, a cabin full of fellow Marines mentally preparing for a deployment, shouting “ooh-rahs” and developing camaraderie, knowing they’d be leaning on each other for the next six to twelve months. No, this flight was a lonely one. A commercial flight with a bunch of civilians from Kabul to New York, eventually landing in San Francisco. And I had to fly in full uniform. Thankfully, the passengers were gracious and kind, but the looks of pity I received because I’d had to use a cane weren’t welcomed by me at all. They meant well, but I hated it. I hated it so badly I wanted to yell at them to stop pitying me, and to stop looking at me.

  After I was discharged from the hospital, they’d made me do some physical therapy. I put all I had into it. There was no way in hell I was gonna go through life using a cane. No way. Hadn’t the doctors said that the bullet had gone through and through? Didn’t that mean it just hit muscle and I should heal soon?

  Yeah, that was the question I’d asked of them. To the best of their knowledge, that should be mostly true, but it was hard for them to tell which major nerves the bullet had damaged, and that only time would tell. They said I was lucky to be young and so very healthy. The chest wound was the same way. It had nicked one of my ribs, but the fact that my major organs had been spared was nothing short of a miracle.

  I rested my head back against the airplane seat and closed my eyes.

  I knew baseball was over. Sure, I had been planning on not renewing my contract, but I had known from day one, deep down in my heart, that baseball wasn’t a career for me. That being said, I wanted to end my baseball journey on my terms. It now seemed I was ending it on the military’s terms.

  I didn’t know if the team knew about my injuries, but I suspected they did. Thanks to social media, I know Miranda and Dalton had Facebook “friended” Jared Davenport, my one real friend on the team, so I’m sure he knew. I just hoped he understood that I had to tell the team manager and our coach what had happened on my terms and in my own time. It was April; Spring Training would be starting in very soon, and they had to know I wouldn’t be there for it.

  I gulped down a bit of sadness as the thought hit me. I’d been playing baseball before I could even talk, it seemed. I know my folks were proud of me, especially my dad, for playing in the minor leagues, and I knew my quitting was going to wound him. That thought alone had me nauseas. I could never hurt my big bear of a dad. He had been nothing but supportive of me in every avenue I’d chosen in my short life. He wasn’t happy when I joined the Marines, yet he’d told me how proud he was of me anyway. He was beaming with pride when I walked across the stage at San Jose State and received my college degree. But he was the most proud when I came home and had told him and Mom that I’d been recruited by the local minor league team. I sw
ear he looked as if he was about to cry.

  No, going home was not going to be easy, but it was also something I was going to have to face with a brave attitude and my head held high. Sure, baseball was over. So were the reserves probably, even though I’d probably fight to stay in and finish out my contract. But this was also a new season in my life. A new chapter to a book that was yet to be written. I had a gorgeous wife, a darling stepdaughter, and my own brand new baby on the way. The pain of my past was not going to define me. It was going to make me stronger, and it was going to help me push through whatever pain waited me for me in the future. Because as I’d learned in the Marine Corps, pain is just weakness leaving the body. I wasn’t weak. I never would be. I would be strong. I would heal and the pain of this particular chapter of my life would just be a learning lesson.

  Chapter 24

  I grabbed my pack from the compartment above my head, and then used the cane the military had given me to hobble my way off the plane. As I disembarked, I ignored the stares from people standing around and made my way toward Baggage Claim, where Miranda said she’d be waiting for me. My stomach was a knot of butterflies and stress. I was so damn excited to see her after all these months.

  Ignoring the offer of a wheelchair by an airport staff, the walk across the massive terminal, down two moving walkways and one escalator was excruciating and took forever, but all pain was forgotten as I spotted my wife immediately as I stepped off the escalator.

  Walking slowly toward her, she saw me and quickly came running over. Ashlynn was practically being dragged by her as they both ran.

  “Jace!” Ashlynn squealed. I felt her wrap herself around my camouflaged pant leg – of my good leg, thank God.

  Miranda was already sobbing into my neck. I pulled back and kissed her hard on the mouth. Then I leaned down and picked up my stepdaughter, planting kisses on her tiny nose and forehead. She was grinning from ear to ear as she dropped a kiss on my cheek. I almost lost it as I looked into her deep, chocolate eyes. “I’ve missed you, princess!”

  She grinned broadly. “You have a stick, Jace!”

  I looked down to see her pointing at my cane. Then I looked at Miranda, her bottom lip wobbling.

  “Yes, I do.” I said it to Ashlynn, but I was looking at her beautiful mama. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, but the amber of her irises was alight.

  I leaned down and kissed her again. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “You have a cane, Jace. Will you always have to use it?”

  I immediately shook my head. “No. I’m going to have to go to a lot of physical therapy, but I don’t think I’ll need it much after I heal.”

  She looked at me from under her lashes and bit her lip. “You can’t play baseball like that.”

  I nodded. “You’re right, I can’t. I wasn’t planning on renewing my contract anyway.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  She nodded, bringing a Kleenex up to her nose.

  I wrapped my left arm around her shoulders and used my right one to hold the cane as we made our way toward the airport exit. I leaned down and planted a kiss on the top of Miranda’s head. She had hold of Ashlynn’s hand as we headed toward the parking garage.

  ***

  Walking into my home for the first time in four months was the best feeling ever. I wanted nothing more than to go lie in bed with my wife and spend the entire weekend tangled up with her. But the tinkling of a little four-year-old quickly reminded us that responsibility came first.

  “Can I play with it?” Ashlynn asked, pointing at my cane. She seemed to have a fascination with it. I wasn’t sure why, except that maybe she hadn’t seen one before.

  “No, princess. I need this. Want to show me the presents you got at your princess party?”

  Her face lit up. “I got a new baby!”

  I chuckled a little as she held up a doll that was almost as big as her. Little did she know she really was going to be getting a real, live baby soon.

  Later, when Ashlynn was in bed, I undressed my Miranda down to her bra and panties and looked at her body. I could hardly tell she was pregnant, but I put my hand on her warm belly and kissed her. “I’m so happy.”

  She choked on a sob, her voice shaky. “Happy doesn’t cover it.”

  “I thought you’d be bigger,” I whispered.

  She laughed a little, resting her head on my chest. My hand was still on her belly. “I am only like four months. I didn’t really even show until about six months along with Ash.”

  I led her to the bed and gently laid her down, staring at her some more. Her black lace boy-shorts and matching lace bra looked smoking hot against her pale skin.

  For the first time in weeks, my pants felt like they’d shrunk two sizes and I couldn’t be happier that Miranda was the one I was going to be pouring all of my love into for the next several hours.

  Our lovemaking was calm and measured, my sore leg and chest a factor. But the moment I entered her body, I knew I was home. I knew this was where I was meant to be.

  I spent the rest of the night and into the next morning showing her how much I’d missed her. I’d definitely scored a homerun with this woman.

  ***

  I shook Jared’s hand and tried to hide the wince of my face as his grip caused a bolt of pain to shoot through my right pec muscle. I obviously needed to work on my poker face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I sighed. “My chest isn’t fully healed yet.”

  He looked sympathetic. A look I was growing tired of. “I’m so sorry, man.”

  “Seriously, it’s ok. It’ll get better soon. So, where’s Coach?”

  “He’s at a table in the back,” Jared said, leading the way through our favorite sports bar.

  Two weeks prior, I had made a very painful call to my coach to let him know I would have to break my contract for the team. I had one more season left on it, and before I’d been hurt, I had contemplated just finishing it out, or trying to get out of it. Between my new family, my business, and of course the reserves, I was starting to feel the stress of all these things piled on me. Baseball took up the most of those three things, and besides, the other two weren’t negotiable. I needed my business to support my family, whom I’d never give up, and my reserves contract wasn’t up yet. Still, I felt a bit melancholy leaving the team, but deep down my soul, I knew this was how it needed to be. I was just glad I’d had two years on the team, and the experience. I had been secretly hoping Miranda was pregnant with a son so I could get back involved with baseball in a few years. Ashlynn was already proving to be a girly-girl and probably wouldn’t want to play sports. But I wasn’t ruling out softball for her later on.

  The coach and the team’s owner were both disappointed, yet understanding. Not that they really had a choice. Sure, I could sit out this entire next season and hoped I’d heal, but I think we all knew deep down I probably would never be the same. I could run pretty damn fast and hit that ball with a fierce swing that required incredible strength, but that was before two armor-piercing bullets ripped holes through all that muscle and skin. I wasn’t going to fool myself or anyone else that I would be able to be as incredible as I had been.

  My coach, Aaron Moss, a tall guy in his late 40s with salt-and-pepper hair, along about a dozen other players, were seated at a long table in the back of the bar. They had pitchers of beer on the tables and they were all smiling as they saw me hobble up. Yes I still had the cane but I was working my ass off to get rid of it.

  “Lawless!” Aaron said in his gravelly voice, walking around the table to shake my hand.

  I put it out, just as I heard Jared say, “Oh, no, Coach, don’t –” but it was too late, as Coach shook my hand and I bit back a grunt.

  “What?” Coach asked Jared.

  Jared smirked. “It’s his chest is all.”

  Coach looked surprised. “Chest? I thought you were shot in the leg?” He pointed at it.

&n
bsp; I jabbed a thumb at my right pec. “Chest, too.”

  He had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Jace.”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “No problem.” I looked at the rest of the team. “The rest of you will have to settle for high-fives with my left hand.”

  They all laughed.

  It was so nice of them to throw me this farewell lunch. I was going to miss these guys – a lot. I was definitely going to be taking my family to more games, though, so I could keep up with what these guys were up to. I had a feeling a few of them would be going pro – especially Jared. He had a wicked pitching arm that I knew would take him far.

  We enjoyed beer, wings, and good conversation, and after about an hour, the coach got up and presented me with a card and a plaque, not dissimilar to the trophies I’d gotten as a kid. Except this one was much larger and fancier. He read the inscription:

  Jace Lawless, Best Swing in the West! The San Jose Marlins, 2012-2014

  There was my official baseball photo in my uniform, along with a baseball and bat engraved into the brass. It was set against a dark oak base and was very heavy. It probably measured 12x12 inches and I knew it would look nice hanging in my office.

  Just when I thought Coach was done, I was about to say thank you, but he put his right hand on my left shoulder, taking care to avoid my bad one, and looked me in the eyes. “Jace, you were a hell of a baseball player, we are going to miss you. But me and the team, we also wanted to say thank you for your service in the Marines. You can’t possibly know how worried we all were when we’d heard you’d been shot. We all said a prayer as a team before practice for you that you’d make it home to your new lady and little girl. We’re so glad you did.”

  I had to force down a sob that wanted to jerk up my throat. I couldn’t avoid the glistening in my eyes and I quickly swiped at them before I totally embarrassed myself.

  I nodded and forced a smile. “Thanks, Coach.” I turned to the table, where the rest of the guys were seated, and looked each one in the eye. “And thank you, guys. I couldn’t have asked for better teammates.”